Leave a draft post long enough and the discussion will move on entirely from your half-completed thoughts and you can scrap the entire piece. So without further fuss, and while the baby is reluctantly occupying himself in the playroom, here is my quick response to all this:
Several questions hover, largely unnoticed over the discussion that has emerged around this thought-provoking article by Gaby Hinsliff, where she wonders if a majority of mothers, like herself, would now be happier at home.
- First of all, why is Hinsliff’s very interesting story being turned into fodder for the ‘women can’t have it all’ campaign? Having it all doesn’t necessarily mean at the same time. Surely? Careers can ramp up and slow down at various points. Career changes, study breaks, caring responsibilities, the pursuit of passions/hobbies/charity work, health problems etc. Why is the question of whether women can combine demanding full-time careers with motherhood so focused on a short-term view (ie. can they make it to the top while also getting a baby from zero to five years old)? Why aren’t we instead looking at women’s careers as lifetime works and then evaluating whether we can have it all?
- Why are we still allowing anyone to entertain notions that a woman like Hinsliff is a traitor to the feminist cause for leaving her job? With or without a child her job sounded unsustainable.
And if there wasn’t enough time for him, there was less for me. Sunday newspaper life is relatively relaxed early in the week, frantic at the end: I might be in the office on a Friday until 2am, snatch three hours’ sleep before the baby woke, then put in another 15 hours’ work. On days off I still dragged myself out of bed at dawn, not wanting to miss any more of him.
- Also, why do so many continue to see Hinsliff’s decision to leave a full-time job (admittedly an amazing one) as opting out of the workforce? Hinsliff doesn’t identify as a ‘homemaker’, her career change is simply a move towards a more flexible job, in this case, freelance and home-based. She has also explained that part-time work was available if negotiated at The Observer but that it would also mean downgrading the job. The bigger question is why aren’t there more meaningful part-time jobs around for parents and non-parents alike?
- And yes, there is a sizeable group of mothers (and fathers) who would be happier at home with their children than trying to combine both work and family life. We should start talking about that more too, but let’s not fold the rest of these problems in with that discussion.
Download the Radio National interview with Hinsliff on Australian ABC radio here. Also, check out Hinsliff’s blog used to be somebody for more as her adventure unfolds.
(Thanks yellow_ruff for the tip off).
Your comment about having it all, but not necessarily at the same time is very apposite. Yet this point is not immediately apparent to many people, especially to mothers of young children who must consider the decision of whether or when or for how many hours or days they should return to the workforce very shortly after the birth of the child(ren), and before they can possibly have worked out all the complexities.
I was very fortunate in being able to work part-time when my first two children were small, and for me the work/child care balance was fairly easy. When I decided to have a third child, it was a more complicated decision. Maternity leave had just been introduced and so I was entitled to six months off work, and, as my job was already part-time, I could return to the same hours. I was very fortunate that my employers were prepared to be very flexible. On the other hand the children’s father was working very long hours and even when that changed he was never very helpful. As in so many other cases the workload fell on the female – me.
Having managed to balance domestic life and work, I was able to be both helpful and sympathetic when other mothers joined my workplace, and found that assuring them that it was not necessary to do everything now this minute, and that there were things which could be postponed, or put on the agenda for a later date was one of the most useful pieces of advice. It does not always have to be an all or nothing choice.
When the hell will there be a Men Can’t Have It All banner freakin’ headline?
Anyway, I’m back in the stay at home gig from next week, because the temping gig that was supposed to take nine months is actually stopping at six weeks. I’m not at all sorry to be leaving the job, which sucked, but somehow we will still have that inconvenient matter of the rent. Personally, I’m the sort of mother who likes to keep her kid housed and fed, who wants to be able to send them on school camp and provide them with shoes that fit, and know that she’s with her partner because he’s right for her, not because she’s stuck.
I think that asking what women want is only part of the discussion. We must also look at what they are forced to want There is social pressure to earn and be ‘productive’ generating income in the traditional economic sense .There is 60s wave feminist pressure to use your brain, not depend on some man and not just ’stay home’. Oddly enough we have created economic systems that do not permit women to want to take care of the children and we have permitted men to define this role as laziness, akin to ‘not working’, unproductive, selfish and indulgent. If women’s rights mean anything they should insist on changing the tenor of the discussion so that role in the home is valued as vital work not ’staying home’, is seen for the 1/3 of the GDP it provides anchoring the economy with healthy citizens. And surely we must talk not just from the daycare lobby angle that we must fund daycare for women who have ‘no choice but to work’We must look at women who have no choice but to be home, those with handicapped kids, rural moms, parents of multiples, parents one of whom is away so much or both of whom have such odd paid work hours that it really is impractical to just think a 9 to 5 daycare is a solution. We must look at choice in the broadest sense and it is not just about saying it is a ‘luxury’to ’stay home’ . It is very hard, seflless, thankless work to do the care role at home and we don’t have to heap insults on it too. We should get governments to value all roles for women, paid or unpaid and stop with the subtle bias against mothers whose work is unpaid.
beverley smith – i LOVE your comment. I completely agree. I have written about many of these elements in the past here but you’re so right in highlighting them for this particular discussion.
For anyone who wants more of this: The Price of Motherhood by Anne Crittenden.